CHAPTERS 3 & 4: STOICHIOMETRY & REACTIONS
Chapter 3: Stoichiometry
Chemical reactions have a profound effect on our lives. There are many examples: Food is converted to energy in the human body; nitrogen and hydrogen are combined to form ammonia, which is used as a fertilizer; fuels and plastics are produced from petroleum; the starch in plants is synthesized from carbon dioxide and water using energy from sunlight; human insulin i s produced in laboratories by bacteria; cancer is induced in humans by substances from our environment; and so on, in a seemingly endless list. The central activity of chemistry is to understand chemical changes such as these, and the study of reactions occupies a central place in this book. We will examine why reactions occur, how fast they occur, and the specific pathways they follow. In this chapter we will consider the quantities of materials consumed and produced in chemical reactions. This area of study is called chemical stoichiometry. To understand chemical stoichiometry, you must first understand the concept of relative atomic masses.
Chapter 4: Types of Chemical Reactions and Solution Stoichiometry
Much of the chemistry that affects each of us occurs among substances dissolved in water. For example, virtually all the chemistry that makes life possible occurs in an aqueous environment. To understand the chemistry that occurs in such diverse places as the human body, the atmosphere, the groundwater, the oceans, the local water treatment plant, your hair as you shampoo it, and so on, we must understand how substances dissolved in water react with each other. However, before we can understand solution reactions, we need to discuss the nature of solutions in which water is the dissolving medium, or solvent. These solutions are called aqueous solutions. IN this chapter we will study the nature of materials after they are dissolved in water and various types of reactions that occur among these substances. You will see that the procedures developed in Chapter 3 to deal with chemical reactions work very well for reactions that take place in aqueous solutions. To understand the types of reactions that occur in aqueous solutions, we must first explore the types of species present. This requires an understanding of the nature of water.